


The Great Ore-Ryan

by FosterTheBananas



Series: The Sky and the Sea [1]
Category: Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town (Video Game 2020), 牧場物語つながる新天地 | Story of Seasons
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26087191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FosterTheBananas/pseuds/FosterTheBananas
Summary: Gray can’t get out of his own head, so Kai tells him a story.
Series: The Sky and the Sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897603
Kudos: 10





	The Great Ore-Ryan

Metal is amazing. Slam enough heat and pressure and it melds for you; transforming under a patient hand. Give it time and it hardens again, sometimes stronger than before. Some people are like metal. They can take the beatings of life and come out stronger for it. But, some people can’t, and they crack under pressure. People shouldn’t have to be like metal, but sometimes life pushes at you regardless.

_ “I told you! He can’t stay! The forge is too dangerous for a child! I can’t stop my work to handhold him.” _

_ “He’ll be fine, dad. It’s just for the afternoon.” _

_ “No- Hey! Come back here, dam-darn it!” _

_ Saibara threw off his gloves and ran a ruddy hand over his face before looking over at his grandson. _

_ “Alright, Gray. You’ll have to just sit in the corner over there. I’ve got a rush job needs finishing.” _

_ Saibara slid his gloves back on, and added as an afterthought,  _

_ “Don’t touch anything.” _

_ “Yes, sir.” _

_ Saibara grunted in approval. _

Gray raised a trembling hammer but came down just left of his mark, glancing the sickle as he did. He was hot from the forge, and every piece of clothing he had stuck to him, clinging and making his skin feel pulled out of place. The shoulders of his shirt felt uneven, and thinking about it threw him off balance, sending another blow off target. He wanted to grab at his shirt and readjust it, and he was acutely aware of the way his socks felt around his ankles. He wanted to pull them up high until they stretched out and no longer felt tight. Gray tried to push all these thoughts away, and jumped when another blow went off target, this time wildy. The sound of the hammer hitting the anvil straight on clanged in his ears. 

“Damn it, Gray! You can’t keep doing this!”

“I know, Grandpa.”

“No! You’re going to get yourself hurt!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You need to focus!”

“Yes, sir.”

Saibara looked at him, then sighed. 

“Just go for today.”

Gray felt a lurch in his stomach.

“No, please! I can do it right!”

“Not today, you can’t.”

_ Saibara pulled a long sheet of metal from the fire and set it flat on the anvil. He raised his hammer high, gripped firmly in his hand, and brought it straight down. _

“What happened there, sad eyes? Gramps send you home early again?”

Gray pulled out a chair and collapsed in it dramatically. Something about being around Kai made him prone to theatrics.

“One pineapple juice for the most useless blacksmith’s apprentice, please.”

“Oh, and what will you have?”

Gray huffed at the witticism and blew his bangs from his eyes.

“That’s such an old line,” Gray said. “And I’m serious. You should have seen me today. I’m the worst. Grandpa thinks so too.”

Kai rolled his eyes and brought Gray a juice. He made sure it had an extra long curvy straw. As the boss of his cafe, he gets to make the important executive decisions like that.

“You’re in your head too much, Gray,” Kai said as he sat down at Gray’s table.

“I have to be in my head! There are so many steps, and if I get one wrong, the whole project is shot!”

“Okay, well, I don’t know much about blacksmithing-”

“Well, we’re just a pair then.”

“But as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, I do know a thing or two about cooking,” Kai finished with a glare. “And cooking has a lot of steps too.”

“Okay, okay. What’s your advice, master chef Kai?”

“Well, if you spend too much time thinking instead of actually cooking, then you’re just going to make mistakes,” Kai said. “And mistakes in cooking can be dangerous. You could cut your finger, or set a lady’s hat on fire...”

Gray paused from sipping and looked questioningly over at Kai.

“No, that’s not from experience! It happened to a...friend. The point is, it can be dangerous to overthink.”

“Okay, well if I’m not thinking about the steps, then I’m thinking about how hot I am, or how my clothes feel bunched up, or-”

Kai threw a crumpled napkin at Gray before he could continue.

“Breathe, Gray.”

Gray sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Have you tried thinking about something else?” Kai asked.

“Like what?”

“Anything!”

“That’s too broad!! I’ll just think about my socks again!” Gray said as he slouched further in his seat.

“Do you really think about your socks? Wait, don’t answer that,” Kai said as he dodged the napkin Gray threw back at him.

“It’s hopeless.”

“Oh, little sad eyes. Hmm. I have an idea.” 

_ The metal bent under the hammer. It didn’t lose all its form, but gave way gently, like it was making room for a very rough friend. _

Gray and Kai sat on the pier. The night air was warm as they dangled their feet off the edge.

“And so here we are on the beach. At night. And I have sand in my shoes. And-”

“Uh-uh, let’s try this thing called listening,” Kai said.

“Fine,” Gray huffed.

“Excellent! Do you see those stars over there?” Kai asked as he pointed at the ocean.

“Um, are we looking at a specific set of stars or?”

“Yes! That group reflected in the water. Right there,” Kai emphasized with another point.

“The reflection? Okay, I think so. Yeah,” Gray answered.

“That’s Ore-Ryan.”

“Orion? The hunter?”

“No, Ore-Ryan,” Kai enunciated. “The blacksmith.”

“Did you make that up?”

“Does it matter? Listen closely. I’m going to give you something to think about when you work.”

“Um…”

“Listen closely,” Kai repeated.

Ore-Ryan and his brother Orion were very close, once. They would run through the sky all day and night. Below them, on Earth, mankind was just staring out. Man spread out among the lands and tried to survive. But the Earth itself was barren and hard. It wasn’t easy to live.

The sky was empty too. Ore-Ryan and Orion only had each other. They didn’t care, though. They were happy. But one day, while they were playing, they got separated. Ore-Ryan looked everywhere for his brother. He was about to give up when he came across a large planet. It was beautiful and sparkled every color imaginable.

He looked at the planet for a while and then he got an idea. You see, Orion had a bow, but Ore-Ryan had a hammer. He lifted the hammer up high above his head and brought it smashing down with the strength of a thousand forges. It exploded into a million pieces. Some of those pieces became the other stars in the sky. But many fell down to Earth and we call them “ores,” after the great Ore-Ryan. And if ever a blacksmith finds himself in need of help, they need only to find an ore of their own, and Ore-Ryan will grant them good luck.

“What about his brother?” Gray asked.

“Orion saw the explosion and was able to make his way back to Ore-Ryan.”

“You’re a good storyteller, Kai,” Gray said. “But…”

“But?” 

“You said the brothers were close once. Why couldn’t they stay that way forever?”

Kai thought about this for a moment and then said, “The ocean and the sky are thousands of miles apart, but it’s the sky that makes the ocean blue. They’re still a part of each other.”

“I guess…”

But Gray thought about his father, who would leave him with his grandfather so often. And who, when Gray was older, just left. And as he glanced at Kai sitting next to him, he thought about how Kai would leave too at summer’s end. Would he ever be good enough for someone to stay?

“You’re in your head again, Gray,” Kai prodded him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry,” Gray said.

“Here. I have something for you.”

Kai grabbed his hand and slipped something round and smooth inside. Gray held it up to his face and saw that it was a pearl.

“It’s your very own ore, for good luck,” Kai explained.

“Thanks, Kai. But a pearl isn’t a-”

“It’s the ore of the ocean!”

“Thank you,” Gray said again.

He slipped it into his pocket and the boys looked out at the ocean. 

_ Saibara brought his hammer down, and sparks flew from the sheet of metal. Gray watched with wide eyes and an open mouth. _

The forge was hot and Gray’s clothes were sticking to him. His shirt felt uneven. He tried to blow his bangs out of his eyes, but they stuck to him with sweat. Gray’s first blow glanced just short of his target. He felt Saibara’s eyes pierce him. 

_ “What is it, boy?” _

Gray tried to shake it off and took a deep breath. He patted his pocket to make sure the pearl was there, and let his mind drift away from the forge. He thought about his first time in his grandfather’s forge; the first of many times his father would leave. But that day he was only aware of his grandfather’s strength and steady presence.

He thought about pineapple juice and the color purple. He thought about the beach, and the feeling of the sand, and the sound of the waves that leave but always come back. He thought about the sky and the endless stars. He thought about how two things can be apart and yet still together.

And then he had thought all the thoughts worth thinking. He brought his hammer straight down, and sparks flew from the metal. In the corner, Saibara nodded his head in approval.

Gray reached into his pocket and gripped the pearl. 

_ “It’s so beautiful, grandpa!” _

_ “...Aye, you’re right about that.” _

**Author's Note:**

> So really, this piece of writing suffers because it is too many ideas crammed into one. It's Gray's anxiety, his relationship with his father, his friendship (and more) with Kai, his fear of people leaving, a creation story, and the tiniest of bit the relationship with his grandfather too.  
> (Also, the intro with metal and pressure shouldn't be there at all because it doesn't connect thematically to the rest of the story...but I really wanted to keep it.)
> 
> All these things should have been separate chapters in a longer story, but then it would never have been written. So, please forgive that the different ideas don't all flow together, and aren't all equally developed.


End file.
